A Most Interdimensional Adventure
by EternalShad0w
Summary: When we left off, Zuko and Katara had what seemed like a bad cactus juice trip. Now they're dumped by a very unsympathizing Cosmos into another world. There they quickly find they are not alone as a mysterious old man followed them without even wanting to. (This is the real story following the Prologue so you should probably read that first, just saying.) Rated T for Tmild swearing
1. The First Chapter

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I love reviews, they are my soul food. That and popcorn. It makes me happy to note that I got reviews almost instantaneously too. A gracious bow to you, sirs and/or madams. Since I'm on a caffeine rush I decided to write the next chapter/fic almost immediately as well. ( Look, a day or so is almost instantaneous after months of not publishing a single chapter.) Here you go.

The Story of Waking up Awkwardly in a Forest with an Archenemy in a Difficult Situation

One second, there was peace and tranquility in the forest, the mighty eagle shrieked from high up in the sky. An elk raised its head from some lichen on a stone to gaze for predators foolish enough to attack it. The next second was complete chaos. The poor elk disintegrated to make way as a trio of mismatched characters dropped into what was now a burnt spot on the ground. One of them lost his mask in a bush he rolled past, another rolled down a shallow sinkhole near a tree, the last rolled into a puddle. None were happy, all were completely knocked out.

It took Katara a few minutes to wake up in a small hole at the base of a great ash tree. Of course, she probably didn't know it was an ash tree since they don't exist in her world. The very first thing she noticed was the pain of a million bruises. She searched for her water pouch only to find it was empty and torn. She slowly staggered to her feet and looked around for water. All she saw was some ash of the burned kind, a charred spot on the ground and a very large forest. Then her vision cleared and she saw a teenager lying with his back to her. She staggered over to see if he was hurt. The shock of who it was made her tumble back into her hole. As she lay there her head spun and memories came out from nooks and crannies in her mind. It looked somewhat like this

TEASHOPZUKORAINBOWTEASPINNYWALLSWAVYFLOORSGINSENGWTFAANGSOKKA WHERE AM I?!

It didn't feel very pleasant, but the shock took away the pain as she rushed from her hole and started beating the crap out of Zuko's still body. He moaned and woke up.

Zuko's first thought was very similar to his last in his own world. Sort of like

But seriously am I really that bad at tea?

Then he noticed the pummeling and beating he was getting from an all too familiar face. He ignored the pain and kicked himself up, firing off some flames in her direction. They missed and only scorched some grass.

"STOP!", some random voice called. A man in a light brown robe carrying a gnarled staff came out of the trees, his robe was very wet. "Who the hell are you two?", he shouted. "And what are you doing here with me?" They didn't know what to say. One rarely does when a weird old man dressed in a wet robe asked who you were. After a few moments of mutual puzzlement, Katara gave the man some pity.

"I-I am Katara of the Southern Water Tribe, who are you?", instead of answering the man turned to Zuko.

"Like I'm just going to tell a random stranger my name!", was the only answer the man's inquisitive stare got.

"Horseturds", he said rather bizarrely. He then started muttering to himself, pacing back and forth. "this...bad...HORSECRACKERS...it had...happen...me", were the only things they heard.

"Who are you?", Katara said once more. He seemed to notice she was still there.

"I am Sigmund, for now, before I was Simon, but that was the past.", he answered after a few moments.

"So who are you?", she asked for clarification.

"I am Cyrus, but that's in the future or the past for all I know. You see I have a different name for different times, and different times for a different name. Of course, my whereabouts matter a lot as well. Never doubt that."

Neither Katara nor Zuko saw what he meant and exchanged a look for possibly the first time ever without glaring.

"So what is your REAL name?", Zuko asked, for further clarification.

"I sincerely wish I remembered that, but ah well, the consequences of a misspent youth."

They still weren't sure about him, in fact if anything they thought he was being even more untrustworthy.

"So where are we and what are we doing here?", Katara asked, deeming that those were the most important questions for now.

"Hm... I knew that would come up sooner or later. I don't really know. I think something threw me off course when I passed through that teashop, was any of you making ginseng tea while on the exact opposite of the world someone stepped on a crack in the road just as I was passing through the wall between the Middle and the Inner Rings?"

Zuko's eyes widened a bit and then he scrunched up his nose in disbelief.

"Oh, don't look at me like that, I don't make the rules I just try my best to bend them and this time it didn't work. Though that would explain it all, this isn't a million to one chance, no, this is practically a googleplex to one chance and I'm incredibly unlucky to have fallen for this, and you two are as well, of course."

This didn't explain anything to either of the two teenagers. So they resigned to staring at the man they now thought was completely mad. He just kept going.

"However I don't think that answers your questions, does it? Um...how to put this. If you saw a map of the world right now. You probably wouldn't recognize anything." He flinched at their shocked stares.

"Are you trying to say that we aren't in our own world?", Zuko asked with a slight trepidation for the answer. The awkward silence that followed gave him all the answers he didn't want but really needed. He fainted. Well, more like fell to the ground as if his legs couldn't carry him anymore and just quietly shivered when the full realization of what just happened struck him. "This can't be happening, this isn't happening.", he mumbled under his breath.

Meanwhile, Katara had been sitting back just trying to take in everything, twisting and bending the situation until she'd seen all the angles she could make out. Now she felt she should take a stand. She stepped forward a bit and looked straight into Sigmund's eyes and asked what she felt most important.

"Sooo... can you take us back at once, please?" He looked at her for a few seconds, seemingly appraising different ways to get them home. At least she hoped he did.

"I can take you back all together at once if you'd like to have his bladder instead of your heart and vice versa." She got a bit paler and felt bile at the back of her throat.

"Then could you take someone first and then return and take the other one?"

"No, no, no, I can't do that, either. See, every world has its own time controlling device called a Chronolith at the center of the world, and they all work differently. For example, yours work by counting down to the Comet and then skipping ahead 80 years. While this one could skip potentially 100 years while I'm gone with the one who goes first. This means I'll return when the second one is either very old or dead. Not ideal, especially seeing as you two are rather, well, big in your world."

"Then what CAN we do?", Katara hated how much of her desperation and confusion slipped through that sentence, but she didn't care anymore. The prospect of never meeting her friends and brother again... She wondered what they would think when she didn't return. She had left a note that said she would be gone to shop a bit for a few hours. A NOTE! Knowing Sokka he would freak out just because of the note, what would happen if she didn't return. What would her father and Gran think when they heard that she was nowhere to be found? What would Aang think? That she had abandoned them? No, he would never think that. Would they believe she had gotten kidnapped by the Dai Li? She knew they would search for her, and she knew their search would be fruitless. Not even the Avatar could travel to another world. Except he could but that was the Spirit World. Was it there they were? No, it felt too solid for what she thought was the Spirit World. Too real, even if their situation felt very unreal. She wondered what Toph would think, would she too try to search for her? Perhaps, most likely, absolutely. She felt a tear welling up as a single raindrop fell on the tip on her nose.

"Fantastic, now it's raining as well, this does NOT help the thought process", Simon yelled at the sky as if that would solve everything. "Get up, Mr. Angstypants, Miss, we need shelter. Not only would that get us out from this miserable rain but it would help in the long run as well by telling us where in Hell we are." With a little help from Cyrus she managed to get Zuko up before he started yelling at them in the tongue of Sailors. He literally exploded, well not in the gory sense, ew, but in the sense that he made a second charred stop near the first bigger one. This singed Katara and left some burns on her palms, Sigmund thanked luck for having it rain so that there wouldn't be more damage to the forest. And so they started walking, Simon in the lead cursing to himself, Katara in the middle trying to heal her hands with the rain, and Zuko trailing off behind them, glowering at everything in his way.


	2. And of Finding Out Where You Are

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Ah, I found questions in my letterbox.

Where is this in the time line?

This is after Iroh gets his own tea shop but before Azula fake-invites them over to the Earth King's palace.

Does Katara know about bloodbending?

Katara doesn't know anything about bloodbending, but I might have her find out, potentially...

I just realized that my backspace doesn't work.

And of Finding Out Where You Are

As they trudged through the forest towards, well, anything that could be called civilization. The man kept talking about things none of them understood. What did a Fire Nation invention have to do with continuity? Was his name Silas?

They didn't really care, Katara was mostly quiet in the middle, thinking of her friends and family. Zuko was just stumbling along behind them, pretending this wasn't happening, lashing out at anything that got too close. They were just walking up a small ridge when Whatever-the-hell-his-name-is said something about music intensifying. As they reached the top, they saw a small, beautiful village near a valley lake. A bridge from it extended over to an island upon which rose a large, fortified building. The view was breathtaking enough for them to forget their troubles and aching feet, just for a second. Then they remembered that they weren't even supposed to know that the village existed. That the world they were in wasn't theirs. That threw everything in a darker, more threatening sheen. Silas (?) seemed to sense their discomfort.

"Um... well... welcome to Arendelle, I guess, because that's where we are. Um, a friendly hint, you really shouldn't be bending out in public. They're not exactly, uh, friendly, towards people with 'special powers' here. Not a lot of people have them.", he said, throwing glances at the village. He then proceeded to somehow slide down the rocky, uneven slope like it was made of ice. Katara and Zuko hesitantly followed him down the most decidedly non-slippy slope. As they got down to the road, Simon cleared his throat.

"So, Katara, I hope you grasp the fact that you are going to attract some glances, being underage and looking somewhat like you're part of a minority that hardly ever leave their native soil. So, with your consent, I'm going to make a few..."modifications" in your physical appearance and take you, so to say, a bit further in your path towards senescence."

"Which is?" Katara felt that was a very legitimate question, but Cyrus just brushed it off.

"This probably won't hurt, I can't say because I've never put anyone, even myself, through this."

Katara began backing away.

"Stand still!" He made the gesture of pulling two heavy things away to the side. This had the very peculiar effect of opening a green and black hole in the middle of the sky. His whole body shuddered with disgust as he reached into the hole towards Katara. Katara had a split moment when her entire being, not her life, everything she was and wasn't and could be and would be and had been. It was a very unpleasant experience. She then collapsed to the ground and turned briefly into a jumbled heap of flashing symbols, before re-appearing as a woman who seemed to be in between 18 and 20. Zuko barely managed to not stare at her. She opened a couple of smoldering furious, blue eyes. After awkwardly stumbling up on her suddenly very long legs while also trying to compensate for the sudden weights on her chests, she just stood there, her legs shaking as if she was a newborn muntjac. She said some very (in her opinion) fitting insults to Silas and only stopped herself from strangling him by reminding herself that he was her only way out of that world. She sat down again to avoid collapsing. At least her body was reacting like it had been changing to this for, well, 4 to 6 years. Unlike those stories about spirits changing the souls of the mother and the daughter where some of the drama was about the daughter not being accustomed to the daily physical activities of the mother and vice versa. It wasn't as uncomfortable as the actual process of aging had been. It was probably because her body accepted it like normality that her mind accepted it so readily as well. Zuko was at the same time once again in the sweet embrace of denial. Katara had always been 3 years his senior and smoking hot , hadn't she? His excuses were becoming less and less plausible for every time he made one up.

"You won't believe how weirdly that makes me feel, poking about in your privates... that sounded much better in my head. Um... another thing, oh god, this feels wrong..."

He made a hole again and reached through, this time both Katara and Zuko blacked out. When they woke up, they felt like they had eaten an entire dictionary and grammar course scroll. It felt very weird.

"Let's not do that again.", Sigmund shuddered. He then motioned for them to follow him. When they reached the gate they were stopped by some guards.

"Let me do the talking.", Cyrus whispered to them. He approached the guard captain, who started speaking in a strange language Katara and Zuko never had heard before. Except they knew it perfectly. Katara had started accepting these strange things about now, but Zuko still couldn't believe it. This was just too impossible. People just weren't flung into another dimension by making tea, they just weren't.

"What is your business here in Arendelle?", the guard captain asked, pointing his spear at him.

"Oh, nothing much. We're just passing through. Now, would you let us through?", Sigmund said impatiently.

"Passing through? The excuses these days. But we still need your names, sir." He moved restlessly. The spear looked brand new.

"Oh, of course... I am... I'm..." He cleared his throat. "I am... Sigmund... Pedersson... yes... Sigmund Pedersson and this is... Katara of the... Tunumiit Eskimos and this is... Roku Asano, ambassador of the Japanese Emperor Ninkō." Silas grinned unconvincingly. The guard captain narrowed his eyes.

"Isn't he a bit young to be an ambassador of Japan?"

"Yes, yes he is. However, he is a diplomatic prodigy."

"Uh-huh. I'll have to check with my superior and see what he..."

"No, no you don't."

"Actually, on second thought maybe I don't. Welcome to Arendelle, ambassador, miss, sirs."

The guards parted and they went through the gate, leaving the captain to shake his head in confusion. After they had gotten far enough away, Katara asked the million-dollar questions.

"Uhm, what just happened?" Simon just turned to her, ready to spout off some sesquipedalian exposition. "Nevermind!" Zuko, however, wasn't backing off.

"And just how am I supposed to pose as the ambassador for a country I know nothing about?"

"I told you the most important thing, the ruler is an emperor named Ninkō. Oh, and also you have a very high sense of honor. You'll fit right in." Zuko was not convinced. "Anyway, come on. Let's find an inn and we'll sleep of the tire of trans-dimensional traveling through sheer bad luck. Maybe I'll figure out who I am, can't wait for that."

They finally got two rooms in a small inn called Det Skyggefulle Verthuset, the name didn't make it sound like a very nice place, and the patrons or the bartender didn't make it any nicer, but Katara desperately needed a room for herself and Zuko didn't want to share rooms 'with a random stranger', quite understandable, this inn was the only one with three rooms free. She told them something about re-acquainting herself with her body. They reassured her that they didn't want the details and she shouted at them to 'get their minds out of the gutter'. After a very quick dinner of some fish and some sort of spudly vegetable, they retired to their rooms and went to sleep.

OPTIONAL AN, You can skip this if possible. Well, you can skip the first one too. In fact, you probably did: Next time I'll see about kicking the plot into action for real. Stay tuned. Or something.

Damn backspace.


End file.
